They bring me presents. Mr Geiger, of Morris North Star infamy, visited a Famous Author and brought me a signed copy of her book.
Oh, I’ll love it, will I? Sample paragraph:
Liberals frighten people about their health care in order to stampede through ObamaCare. They claim the Earth is overheating in order to seize taxpayer money for solar panels and compact fluorescent light-bulbs. They call out union thugs to force politicians to accede to insane benefits packages. They stage campaigns of calumny to get their way on gay marriage. Faddish ideas that would never have occurred to anyone fifty years ago–or even twenty years ago–are suddenly foisted on the rest of us by liberal mobs.
That’s on the top of the second page of text, and that’s about as far as I could get. Every paragraph is full of that degree of twisted dishonesty and stupidity — it’s unbelievable that anyone could read this crap and agree with any of it.
Or at least her spin of it. If she really wants to blame liberals for a getting the country slightly better health care, taking some small steps to reduce our impact on the environment, getting better benefits for working people, and treating GLBT people fairly…well, gosh, I’ll just have to accept that. Why does the Republican mob oppose those ideas?
I’ll just have to accept that maybe not all of UMM’s students love me, too.
Poor Geiger.
He’s never going to let this go, is he?
Anne fucking Coulter … sheesh
I think somebody has a crush.
Oh Ann. It’s all LEDs now.
What? Like the idea that you could communicate with people on the other side of the world without so much as opening your mouth? What drivel! What nonsense! Down with liberalism! Ah-boooo! Ah-boooooooo!
Liberal mobs? Squirrels here. Where do you see them Ann?
I always find Ann Coulter a bit of a cypher.
The liberalism she criticizes has given her the right to vote, to earn money and hold an independent bank account, to wear what she wants, and to control her own body. None of these are perfect or uncontested but without them we would never know about her. So strange that she pushes so very hard for the same philosophy that sees her as nothing but a masturbatory orifice, birthing machine, domestic maintenance device, and ornamental appendage for a male.
I understand fighting for freedom. Fighting for the forces that would enslave you … not so much.
I’m still not sure that Coulter isn’t an elaborate Poe. Who’s making a good living from it.
It is not worth the effort to react to this “gift” or to *nn C**lt*r.
<blockquote Faddish ideas that would never have occurred to anyone fifty years ago
Fire bad!
I love comedy and I gotta get this book (free… of course… I’m not paying her for it).
To be able to quote passages of it to some of my more …err …. conservative friends would be fun.
She may be a poe … we may never know.
So this is +1 on the Geiger counter.
Is it still safe, or… ?
lorn @5,
Funny you should say this:
Ann Coulter has repeatedly said that she doesn’t want women to have the right to vote. She’s one of the few conservatives willing to admit out loud and in public that she’s still against women’s suffrage. She seems to be perfectly willing to give away all of her rights just to get the government back to being composed exclusively of rich, old, white men.
I hope Trebuchet is correct that she’s just a Poe. If not, I can’t even process what kind of internal knots she must be in to justify and fight for her own oppression.
I desperately want a Bill Clinton and Ann Coulter action figure set. You could put them into compromising positions and the Ann doll would have a string you could pull and the doll would say things like “Oh yes give me big government…”
…I’ll see myself out.
Because compact fluorescent light bulbs are tools of the Devil, don’t ya know.
jrfdeux @12:
Please do. The “women I disagree with just need to be fucked” trope isn’t any less repugnant when it’s applied to conservatives.
The only time I looked into an Ann Coulter book, she was basing her whole geo-political worldview on the premise that “evolution is just a theory”. She backed that up with a few PRATTs from creationists.
When those large checks come in, she says, “Fuck you, internal knots” and swims in a vault of coins.
…So, the kind of benefits packages that union jobs got 50 years ago, solar panels like the ones installed on the White House 30 years ago, and gay unions like the ones that the Defense of Marriage Act was passed to short-circuit almost exactly 20 years ago are faddish ideas that no one would ever have thought of even 20 years ago. That’s some real fine history there, Ann.
But, screechymonkey, THEY STARTED IT!!1!!11!!eight!!!
*Proceeds to forcefully close the door one half-second before jrfdeux’s posterior has completely cleared the door-jam.*
“and treating GLBT people fairly…”
“GLBT”? Why you gotta put men first, PZ? We all know that’s not the order the acronym goes in.
I’m willing to bet that in the mean time, she still votes. even though she doesn’t want to, but if she doesn’t all those feminists might force her to keep the right to vote. But really, Ann, be the change you want to see, and all that.
Also, Jeremy Paxman is a jerk, but he uses it for awesome:
I will not give Ann Coulter the benefit of being some kind of “Poe”!
I can believe that she is not as ignorant or stupid as she portrays herself… but that just makes her a fucking liar.
I have no idea what this gesture is supposed to mean. Is he trying to upset you? Give you something to “think” about? Did he find it funny? I had a history professor I liked that I spent a good deal of time trying to get Glen Beck to sign a book to, but alas I never got close enough to him. We both would have found that immensely hilarious because of how much a total joke Beck is. Presumably Geiger agrees with Coulter….so way to go Geiger?
PZ should sign it and donate it to a the next Skepchick fundraiser.
Well that’s strange. Why would someone bring you a signed book from the Antichrist?
Oh my Glob, they’re still whining about fucking light bulbs?!
“Faddish ideas”, that “wouldn’t have been thought of fifty years ago”, like weekends and vacations and sick days.
Bring on more of those fads!
We all know it’s far better to seize taxpayer money to give those mandatory drug tests to welfare recipients or to fight against court rulings that show bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.
::eyeroll::
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Naked Bunny with a Whip @8:
Tree good.
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jrfdeux @12:
I agree with screechymonkey at 14. That wasn’t funny. It makes use of sexist tropes to achieve its effect.
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applebeverage @19:
I have seen both. Granted, IME, it’s more common to see LGBT, but GLBT is still in use. Two examples:
http://www.glbtnationalhelpcenter.org/
http://www.glbthistory.org/
Personally, I try to use LGBT because the accomplishments, heck, the very presence of women in society is so often ignored or whitewashed and I think it’s a little thing, but putting ‘lesbian’ first and ‘gay’ second inverts the cultural notion that men are first and most important.
@Tony.
I am an ignorant buffoon on this subject but I am gonna say it anyway.
In some ways is Lesbian not kinda redundant as a term? Can gay not cover both sexes.
mond: The residents of the Greek island of Lesbos would very much like to see “gay” cover both sexes. Seriously. The local government issues statements to that effect every couple years.
PZ, you have a book not only written by the CoulterBeast but handled and signed by it too, and you touch it with your bare hands? I would’nt touch it with any less than the robotic waldoes they use in nuclear labs. Ebola would be like a case of sniffles compared to what you might catch from that modern Book of the Dead.
@Dalillama, Schmott Guy #17
So that’s why the GOP is against marriage equality! (Seriously, the first time I read that I really thought your point was about gay workers’ unions).
@Mond #28
Well, you can use “homosexual” or “queer” to include both groups and/or others, but I don’t think that’s the point. I guess LGBTQetc uses multiple labels to try to be as inclusive as possible, especially since there are some issues more pertinent to gay men than lesbian women, and using blanket words and group statements is not really very useful. And past that, if a group is reappropriating and positivising a label they use to identify themselves, I don’t think anyone else gets to call their word redundant.
I mean why not just call yourself an “equalist” while you’re at it.
@joel 29
I think they’re in the same conundrum as Fucking, Austria. If you can’t laugh at the oddities of ethymology and cooincidences of language, it’s up to you to change your name.
And personally I don’t see what the problem is supposed to be with this: people in my country have surnames like “ballsack”, “dead”, “willy”, “fucker” of which they are rightly proud – either own it or change it.
#27 Tony
As far as LGBT vs. GLBT goes I’m sure bias plays a role but so does how it sounds and ease of speaking. The former rolls off the tongue better for me.
I’ve been using QUILTBAG (and working on making it a habit) since it’s more inclusive and LGBT/GLBT is synonymous with just gay now with the BT particularly ignored. Plus, it’s a memorable word so that’s the reason behind the ordering. But then there’s also the catch-all term gender and sexual diversity (GSD) but I’m okay with using that when speaking in general terms (I want GSD for example) but most people don’t even acknowledge there’s more than just gays and lesbians so I like being able to explain it. More people identify with QUILTBAG particularly so that’s got my vote at the moment. (Subject to change as society, social movement and oppressed people decide differently.)
moarscienceplz@30,
Even where such as Ann Coulter is concerned, please don’t use othering language such as “beast” or refer to her as “it”. She’s a woman. Loathsome, but fully human, and with a gender identity.
I bought Anne Coulters Godless when it came out.Not to try and understand where the other side was coming from but out of curiousity.I thought she’s nasty and ignorant on screen,what’s it going to be like when she’s got a whole book at her disposal.
I remember thinking I’ll wait while it comes out in paperback so when she pisses me off there will be less damage when I hurl it across the room.I needn’t of bothered,it was hilarious.
Also, the person who sent PZ this book.He’s not actually saying ” just look at one of the great thinkers of our time who’s on our side, so there PZ”. I mean he can’t actually be saying that,come on seriously Anne Coulter.
Anyone notice how irrelevant Coulter has become? Her books and their one-word titles are increasingly ignored and her news profile is thinner and thinner. Yesterday’s news, really.
tiko@34:
I think the motive is a lot like that of the folks who like to sign PZ up for various porn mailing lists (usually gay-themed) and such: there’s a lot of projection going on, by which they assume that since they would go nuts if this happened to them, it must be something that will drive PZ nuts.
It’s like those emails or blog posts that get circulated with subject lines like “This will make a liberal’s head explode, Guaranteed!” It’s usually something that most liberals might disagree with, but hardly something whose mere existence will cause stress.
OP: Why does the Republican mob oppose those ideas?
Because money and privilege is only for people who had it 50 years ago, and people who look and talk like them today. Of course, there are probably a sizable subgroup that yearn for pre-civil war “freedoms”.
In theory, “gay” could cover both lesbians and gay men. In practice, when people talk about “gay” rather than “gay and lesbian,” it winds up being mostly about gay men. Explicitly mentioning “lesbian” makes it a little harder to have all-male leadership, spokespeople, and the like. (It doesn’t do anything about bi invisibility, but making lesbians invisible as well doesn’t help.)
I fucking love QUILTBAG.
@36 screechymonkey
Yes I think you’re right.
Isn’t that so ridiculously petty of him? I’m assuming he would have had to buy that book before getting it signed,ok he can obviously afford it but to go to all that trouble to mildly annoy someone (actually I don’t think he even managed that).
Let me see if I can translate:
Millions of Americans don’t have health insurance and the cost is spiraling out of control for those who do. Obama borrows a market plan based on the one Romney signed in Mass to please the Republicans. It’s enacted and Republicans freak out and start rewriting history with in the order of 1s of years (at least Bolton waits 100s of years).
Scientists, decades ago, collect data that shows the earth is warming and the link with human activity becomes obvious. Energy prices rise to the point that more efficient lighting and home scale solar power infrastructure become rational investments to even the most trickled upon GOP households. Legislation curbing green house gasses languishes while the earth continues to warm.
They object to workers collectively making their political voices heard. Citizens United clears the SCOTUS, the 1% have their political control back. Teachers unions are blamed for all of the problems.
Bigots get called out for their bigotry. Somehow, giving Adam and Steve a license to marry doesn’t bring about the apocalypse for all “straight Christian marriages”.
The generation growing up in the Internet Age is shining a Level III Civilization spotlight on right-wing ignorance. The status quo mob is still trying to silence the voices of those who don’t fit their stagnant worldview, but their voices are being heard and the culture is changing.
A little off topic, but to put energy use into perspective:
The world uses about 20300 TWh in total per year. That is a shitload of energy.
But… that could be met with solar-thermal plants (at say 20% efficiency) covering just 0.5% of the Sahara.
@changerofbits
How about a livable minimum wage? Read this lil’ article on the disparity in pay between employees of the same bloody corporation in different countries.
I’m not really sure where the policies Ann Coulter supports are headed, but it sure looks much like a wasteland. What use is the USA to the 1% when the 99% are reduced to dire poverty?
@43 M’thew
Yes, there is a lot of short-sightedness at play. A higher minimum wage would allow the poorest to perhaps actually spend money on consumer goods and stimulate the economy. Sucking the people dry only benefits you in the short term. It’s not just about the people being awfully poor that’s the problem, it also stagnates the economy as a whole when there’s no/very little buying power left in them.
I never understood the opposition to new lightbulb technology. I know people, generally right-wingers, who absolutely refuse to use anything but incandescent bulbs. They take it as a point of pride that they use 200 year old, highly inefficient light bulbs that consumer more power, produce less light, and create a ton of thermal waste.
@Matrim, 45
It’s change. -> Change is bad. -> It’s bad.
They don’t care that it’ll save them money, they don’t care that it’ll produce more light and last longer. They only care that big, bad government is forcing them – possibly even at gunpoint!! – to buy different lightbulbs and maybe even worship alien gods.
How do these people even get INTO college?
screechymonkey #14:
I retract my comment @12 and apologize without qualification. it was a stupid comment, and I fucking know better. Thank you for the reminder.
jrfdeux@48,
Well done.